Five years ago, YouTube opened their partner program to everyone. This was a really big deal: it meant anyone could sign up for the service, start uploading videos, and immediately begin making money. This model helped YouTube grow into the web’s biggest video platform, but it has also led to some problems. People were creating accounts that uploaded content owned by other people, sometimes big record labels or movie studios, sometimes other popular YouTube creators. In an effort to combat these bad actors, YouTube has announced a change to its partner program today. From now on, creators won’t be able to turn on monetization until they hit 10,000 lifetime views on their channel. YouTube believes that this threshold will give them a chance to gather enough information on a channel to know if it’s legit. And it won’t be so high as to discourage new independent creators from signing up for the service. [Read more here...]

Microsoft previously revealed some Project Scorpio specifications, but today the company is unveiling a lot more thanks to Digital Foundry. Eurogamer's separate vertical, that focuses analysis on the speeds-and-feeds of gaming PCs and consoles, has published a big overview of the graphical power of Microsoft's next Xbox console. So far, we've known that Project Scorpio will run at 6 teraflops, ahead of its main competitor the PlayStation 4 Pro with 4.2 teraflops of graphical power. Microsoft also plans to replace its 8GB of DDR3 RAM / 32MB of ESRAM with 12GB of GDDR5 memory on Project Scorpio. While many had hoped Microsoft would transition to AMD’s latest Ryzen CPU architecture, Digital Foundry has revealed the company is sticking with a custom Jaguar-based processor. [Read more here...]

The Windows 10 Creators Update technically doesn’t roll out until April 11, but Microsoft is letting enterprising users get a head start today. The company today released an Update Assistant tool that will help users upgrade to the official Creators build. Granted, if you’re​ the type of person who can’t wait a week for the general rollout, chances are you are already on Microsoft’s Insider builds and have had a taste of what’s coming for quite some time. [Read more here...]

If you used certain apps on an Apple phone between 2009 and 2012, then you may be eligible for a little money from Apple and iOS app developers. Several app makers, including Twitter, Yelp, and Instagram, are offering $5.3 million to settle a five-year-old suit alleging that they violated users’ privacy. [Read more here...]

How long will we remember the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared back in 2014? About 45 years, say scientists who used Wikipedia page views to develop a new way of studying our collective memory (the memory we share as a society). For a study published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers analyzed Wikipedia page views to monitor how frequently people visit topic pages after a news event. In this specific study, the team collected page views of airplane crashes from 2008 to 2016 and labeled these “current events.” Then, they collected the same information on all plane crashes from before 2008 and labeled them “past events.” Analyzing the relationship between the two sets of data shows how different topics are related to each other. The researchers found that terrible current events can help keep past events alive, because people reading about the current event follow links to learn about something from years ago. [Read more here...]

Eyeo, the parent company of popular ad-blocker Adblock Plus, today announced that it’s acquiring a service called Flattr that lets readers tip websites. Flattr was created in 2010 to give news websites and other online media ventures a virtual tip jar to allow readers to contribute a few cents or dollars to help support creators, instead of viewing ads and receiving the content for free. Eyeo first announced a partnership with Flattr last year, and since then Eyeo says the two companies have grown close and an acquisition made perfect sense. As part of using the micropayment system, 10 percent of all revenue passing through the system goes to Flattr and Eyeo. [Read more here...]

Amazon has confirmed plans to open a brick-and-mortar bookstore across from the Empire State Building, bringing its total number of announced but as-of-yet unopened stores in New York City up to three. Publisher’s Weekly reports that a sign reading “Amazon Books Coming Soon” has gone up in the 34th Street storefront, adding that an Amazon rep said the store will open this summer. The store has also been added to the Amazon Books website. This would presumably make it Amazon’s second store in New York. A location in Columbus Circle’s Time Warner Center (just off of Central Park) was announced in January, with the intent to open this spring. [Read more here...]

Solid state drives may be more durable than their magnetic, disk-based hard drive counterparts, but quickly transferring data to and from the drives can still wear them out, causing failure and data loss. Especially if you're doing something like filming 4K video, which needs to be able to quickly write data to an SSD at a constant rate without error. [Read more here...]

Dish’s Sling TV now lets customers add Showtime to their channel package for an extra $10 per month. That includes the regular, linear Showtime network and seven other channels as well; they’re all listed in this blog post announcing the addition of Showtime to Sling TV. Tacking Showtime onto your monthly subscription also adds around 2,000 on-demand titles. The timely announcement comes days before Homeland’s season six finale. [Read more here...]

If there was ever any doubt before, Harley Quinn is absolutely one of the biggest anti-heroes in DC’s stable at the moment. She’s so big that not only is she teaming up with Catwoman and Poison Ivy in the upcoming Gotham City Sirens, but she’s joining forces with Nightwing and Batman himself in the animated Batman & Harley Quinn. [Read more here...]

I’m reluctant to label The Discovery as science fiction, even though Netflix’s new drama has what sounds like a classic Isaac Asimov premise: a scientist has found irrefutable evidence that after death, the human spirit goes somewhere; he’s just not sure where. Like good science fiction, the film raises a handful of questions that could span seasons of television — Can science really prove something like this? Should it? — but the 110-minute film largely ignores those questions in favor of melodramatic twists. For a film about science finding answers to life’s big questions, The Discovery is surprisingly uninterested in how and why we learn the answers. [Read more here...]

You might remember movie characters like Hannibal Lecter, who suffered from hair loss, or the Wicked Witch of the West with her green skin and bumpy complexion. Turns out, these movie villains aren’t the only ones suffering from unflattering skin conditions. Six of the top 10 villains in film sport scars, deep wrinkles, and warts, according to a study published today in JAMA Dermatology. That’s detrimental for people who deal with these conditions in real life, the study authors say. [Read me more...]

All the major carriers offer similar unlimited plans these days, which means cell providers are going the extra mile to entice customers to use their service. The latest is AT&T, which announced today that it will be offering free HBO to customers on its top plan, the $90-a-month Unlimited Plus service. Surprisingly, there aren’t too many catches beyond that. The deal only applies to the Unlimited Plus plan, which allows users to stream in HD if they choose. Although, like most other plans, AT&T may slow your data after you burn through 22GB in a month. [Read more here...]

In a blog post, the company said it will begin using a photo-matching system to prevent intimate images posted without permission from being reshared on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram. When an image has previously been reported and taken down by Facebook, the company writes, that image will be flagged by the system, and the sharer will be alerted. (Facebook also says “in most cases” it disables accounts that share intimate images without permission.) [Read more here...]

Facebook launched a new story feature in its main app last week, adding a Snapchat-esque feed of ephemeral pictures and videos to the top of the News Feed. But people are apparently less than enthusiastic about using it, which is why Facebook seems to be testing a bit of encouragement for the new feature. [Read more here...]

Microsoft has been responding to Windows 10 privacy concerns for nearly two years now, and it appears the company has finally got the message and is prepared to act. Starting today, Microsoft is updating its privacy statement and publishing information about the data it collects as part of Windows 10. “For the first time, we have published a complete list of the diagnostic data collected at the Basic level,” explains Windows chief Terry Myerson in a company blog post. “We are also providing a detailed summary of the data we collect from users at both Basic and Full levels of diagnostics.” [Read more here...]

YouTube announced its TV service to a bit of fanfare back in February, taking on the likes of Sling and DirecTV Now in offering a cheaper, more futuristic alternative to cable. Starting today, you’ll actually be able to begin using it. As a recap, the service costs $35 (other than a couple of add-on channels), and includes more than 50 networks (with more coming), unlimited “cloud DVR,” and access for six household members. [Read more here...]

Apple’s MagSafe charger is essentially dead for all intents and purposes, replaced on all modern MacBooks by USB-C chargers. Yes, you can still find a MagSafe port on the MacBook Air, but you should not buy that laptop under any circumstances. It turns out, it may not be dead for long, as it seems a MagSafe to USB-C adapter may eventually show up in an Apple Store near you. A newly published patent filed by Apple last year and surfaced by Mashable shows that Apple is interested in a MagSafe to USB-C adapter, which would allow newer MacBooks to use the MagSafe cable. Despite Apple’s pivot away from the breakaway charging cable, people still love it — since it doesn’t cause your laptop to crash to the ground when you trip over the cable — and the option to choose between USB-C and MagSafe would be great. [Read more here...]

The White House signaled it is not ready to write new online privacy legislation, even after President Donald Trump signed a measure that rolled back restrictions imposed by Democrats on companies like AT&T, Comcast, Charter and Verizon.
Earlier this week, Trump delivered the final blow to the rules, implemented by the Federal Communications Commission last year, that would have required internet providers to seek customers’ permission before sharing their sensitive data with advertisers and other third parties. [Read more here...]

Microsoft is planning to refresh its Windows 10 design in an upcoming update due later this year. While the software maker is starting to roll out Windows 10 Creators Update this week, the focus on the company’s Windows 10 efforts will rapidly shift to this future update shortly. We’ve seen a number of concept screenshots of Microsoft’s plans for its Windows 10 design refresh before, and today another screenshot has leaked. [Read more here...]

Two seemingly unrelated things happened Monday that actually point directly at the future of the internet: 1. Verizon was scooped into admitting that it’s going to rename the combined zombie corpses of AOL and Yahoo “Oath,” which is a terrible name that comes second only to Tronc. 2. President Trump signed the bill that allows ISPs to share your browsing data without permission. This is everything Verizon and AOL have been working toward over the past few years. Like every other broadband provider, Verizon wants to extract more revenue from its network by increasingly owning the media that travels over it. [Read more here...]

One of the Nintendo Switch’s biggest advantages is the fact that it’s a completely portable console that lets you play Zelda on the go. But on the flip side, one of the Switch’s biggest disadvantages is the relatively short battery life that the console offers, especially when playing a more graphically intensive game. The SwitchCharge is a battery case from a new company called InDemand Design specifically designed for the Switch that hopes to solve that issue (along with a couple of other minor annoyances) by adding a 12,000mAh battery to the back of the console to offer what the company claims is up to 12 hours of battery life. [Read more here...]

Apple might be well on its way to drop its most expensive handset ever with the next-generation iPhone. In a note obtained by MacRumors, UBS analyst Steve Milunovich predicts Apple could be gearing up to release a premium iPhone model that will come with a hefty price tag of between $950 and $1,000 for the highest-end configuration. [Read more here...]

A federal judge temporarily blocked the city of Seattle from implementing a landmark law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize, according to the Associated Press. The ruling is a temporary reprieve for Uber, which just a few weeks ago saw its own effort to stymie the law struck down by a Washington state judge. FollowThe Associated Press ✔@AP BREAKING: U.S. judge temporarily blocks Seattle's first-in-the-nation law allowing drivers of ride-hailing companies to unionize. 2:53 PM - 4 Apr 2017199199 Retweets